


Midnight Dusk

by Dtour5150



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Comic, Other, hero - Freeform, masked - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-09 00:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7780588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dtour5150/pseuds/Dtour5150
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young protagonist provides a cynical view of the world as she explores the grittier side of city life, driven by a series of artices that appear to be journal entries in some kind of longer work. Slowly sinking into her own paranoia, she soon learns about the Masked Hero community and secrets therein.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight Dusk

**Author's Note:**

> W.I.P
> 
>  
> 
> *I do not own any of the characters unless they are OC's*
> 
> *Some characters, timelines, and situations may be altered from the original universe canon.*

      I've always loved walking in the middle of a storm. Especially these days. With a hooded head, downturned face, the gentle yet relentless pitter-patter of tiny specs of water crashing about your feet, and a light glistening on your cheeks....It's a perfect environment for grief. With the dark sky overhead and the fact that nobody really pays attention to anyone else, hiding tears is a breeze.

      You ever notice how everyone is completely absorbed in their little devices these days? Yeah, nobody really talks. Sure, they can text on their cell phones and chat online with people on the other side of the planet who they've never met in person, but when it comes to just hanging out and socializing face-to-face with people they've known for years, they can't do it? They just can't fucking do it. When I walk around, watching people interact together on the street, in restaurants, anywhere, and all of them are totally absorbed in their devices, not talking, not making real connections, not making any effort. When I look at them I see brain-dead imbiciles. I remember when I was going to elementary school cell phones were brand-new and about as big as fucking bricks, and the most powerful computer processor was called TI-82, as in the now-obsolete calculator. Yes, I'll admit that I have one, only because of social convention, however. Stupid smartphone is more of a pain in the ass than useful. The power of a computer in the palm of my hand. La-ti-da.

     With all of this non-communication in a social-network ran world, I feel like I'm the only one doing any actual talking. Well, at least up until a short while ago. I said some things that I will always fucking regret for the rest of my life. My last official words were heard by a dead man, a dead man that was very close to me. Silence does have its advantages, though. I don't get bothered at work, roped in to maniacal banter generally associated with being in a workplace that nobody is happy to work at, where we all put on false faces of happiness and good cheer for the sake of the costumers. Oh how I loathe customer service and all that it entails, from the stupid people that try to swindle you by returning items from a different chain store, to the managers who just plain swindle you. Mine happen to be complete and total assholes, but then again, what manager of big box chain stores aren't these days? The thing I hate most, though, is not the boring water cooler banter of coworkers or the arrogance of the managers, but the pure _avarice_ with which the zombies that shop at these horrible hellholes show without hesitation. It's sickening. Truly sickening. Apparently the consumers don't take to kindly to being called out as such either. Guess that's why they keep me out back in the loading zone; 40% pity, 60% fear.

     So I walk in the rain. They don't understand how this is eating me up inside. Even his family keeps telling me that it wasn't my fault, just a freak coincidence. The road was very slippery with black ice that night and it was raining in sheets. Sight was very hard to accomplish. I still blame myself every day since then. I still cry in the rain. Where nobody sees. In plain sight. I wish I could have made things right. So desperately. His family found peace, so why can't I, they all ask. Why? It's just not that simple. One does not simply snap back from something like this.

     I suddenly notice I've stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk, vaguely aware of the small cliques of cellular slaves passing me by, a few miraculously looking up from their conveniently priced hand-held vices to give me a confused glance. Hallelujah. But they're not what I'm paying attention to. I've stopped in front of the most popular card shop this side of the state. Gallant Ghouls is what it's called. Sells everything a nerd could need for nerdy ways. I frequented this shop not too long ago, hunting down Magic the Gathering cards. Yeah, I'm a nerd. Go fucking figure. I notice my reflection in the highly polished plate-glass window filled with posters and advertisements for various trading card tournaments and new releases and give myself a once-over: sopping wet bangs under a grey hood darkened by harshly cold winter rain, similar shoulders, the jacket zipped up to just under my collar bone, black jeans slowly fading out because of various washes and the fact that I've been wearing the same 4 pairs of jeans for going on 8 years now, also darkened by winter dew on the thighs and calves. Black ratty rubber boots, knee-high but tucked under the jeans. Hands suspiciously in pockets of the jacket, face turned down, looking dark and sunken-in under the heavy hood and dripping wet dirty blonde bangs. Guess I do look like a 'hood. Whatever. I'm society's problem now.

     After a moment's pause in which I decide whether or not to torture myself and go into _his_ realm of existence again, or where he used to exist, I move on, half walking half jogging down to the edge of the darkening city, where high money is paid in low places to even lower people in seedy underworld deals that live in the back alleys of the universe, garbage stacked as high as a second-story window, children crying and playing tag and red rover amidst the rats and vermin that litter the concrete Hell. I turn a corner and a bright yellow and green neon sigh pierces my field of vision, _Angels and Archimedes Tattoo Parlor_. It blinks on, off, on, off, the third 'on' in the sequence just slightly faster than the rest, but only just. An average passerby observer wouldn't even pick up on it; then again I've been coming down here for a while now.

 

     The grimy side of the city holds no surprises for me as of late.

 

The building the sign is attached to is no real treat to the eye either. The front of the establishment looked like it had seen its fair share of car- and gun-related violence, and it doesn't take a genius to come to the conclusion that yes, those holes are from gunshots and yes, the broken plate-glass window and half-assed patched precipice boarded up with cheap particleboard was probably due to a large vehicle slamming into it on more than one occasion.

 

     Rocket science.

 

I sigh heavily, stiffen my spine, and move to stand in front of the battered and twisted door, beaten in at an angle from years of scuffles and back-alley fights. I’ve been working up the nerve to go in here and get inked for a few weeks now. I think I can finally get one now. Don’t give a fuck how people will react to me being covered head to toe in beautiful ink. It’s going to happen, and when people ask why, I’ll tell them to fuck off. That’s just how it goes.

    


End file.
